local media blog

By now everyone knows the second LA Times editor in as many years has quit over a disagreement in how to manage resources. Specifically, Editor Jim O’Shea refused to make more cuts to the Times newsroom.

In his farewell memo, Mr. O’Shea crystallizes the growing problem for newspapers today in terms of quality journalism and what our profession was originally constructed to achieve and can still achieve — given the appropriate resources.

I especially like these two grafs:

This company, indeed, this industry, must invest more in solid, relevant journalism. We must integrate the speed and agility of the Internet with the news judgment and editorial values of the newsroom, values that are more important than ever as the hunger for news continues to surge and gossip pollutes the information atmosphere. Even in hard times, wise investment — not retraction – is the long-term answer to the industry’s troubles. We must build on our core strength, which is good, accurate reporting, the backbone of solid journalism, the public service that helps people make the right decisions about their increasingly complex lives.

We must tell people what they want to know and – even more important — what they might not want to know, about war, politics, economics, schools, corruption and the thoughts and deeds of those who lead us. We need to tell readers more about Barack Obama and less about Britney Spears. We must give a voice to those who can’t afford a megaphone. And we must become more than a marketing slogan. I know I can rely on this newsroom to do this.

I don’t think it’s naive to follow a strategy that achieves both the solid journalism O’Shea refers to AND strengthens our online products and grows audience everywhere people want news and information.

But, if our product is nothing but smut, gossip and pandering to the lowest common denominator I’m afraid the audience growth will be minimal. I’m even more afraid of what would happen to our society if we continue down the slippery slope and do not invest in good news judgment and editorial values.

National Public Radio understands how to use their Web site, npr.org, to grow audience.

I listen to WVIA, the local NPR affiliate here in Northeastern Pennsylvania every weekday morning on my way to and from work and noticed about two years ago that every single story has a reference to NPR.org for more information.

Newspapers do that, too, but the difference is that NPR actually delivers more information. More, as in addition to, what they said on the radio. Newspapers do not do that regularly. More often than not, the value-added on a newspaper.com comprises links, maybe a chart, and more photos.

NPR extends the story with more information, usually interactive information, you can use.

Case in point: Robert Smith produced a story on whether or not New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is quietly running for president. That’s not a new story but Smith put a fun spin on it and played Candidate Bingo to try and out Bloomberg’s intentions.

What was the online extension to the story? Go to NPR.org and download your own Candidate Bingo and play along with any candidate you may think is running for a higher office in stealth mode.

Case in point: Margot Adler produced a story on the number of hours successful people sleep and the trend towards sleeping less so you can get more done. I believe people need more sleep, not less, but often find it hard to sleep due to the amount of work that needs to be done both personally and professionally (I have three kids, 7 months, 5 and 6!).

The online extension of the story was just what I needed: A tutorial on how to get more sleep!

Now, if only NPR.org produced a daily landing page with links to all the extras so I wouldn’t have to try and memorize where the radio announcers told me to go!

Seriously, Web Extra is not a new concept but the emphasis needs to be put on the EXTRA.

Thanks to Pocono Record Copy Editor Andrea Higgins for pointing out this book and review:

How newspapers have shifted from recitals of official facts to colorful, personal stories
By CARL HARTMAN
For The Associated Press
“Everyman News: The Changing American Front Page” (University of Missouri Press. 280 pages, $39.95), by Michele Weldon: This book isn’t just for news junkies.
It’s worth the effort to plow through for anyone interested in the role that the founding fathers assigned to the press, as they made their great experiment with government by the people to replace government by kings and aristocrats; Thomas Jefferson wrote that he would prefer newspapers without government to government without newspapers.The plowing through does take some effort. The modest 164 pages of text are followed by another 115 of pie charts, notes and references.Michele Weldon, who teaches journalism at Northwestern University, deals with American newspapers generally as well as with front pages, and notes new media that the founders could not have imagined. Her point: News increasingly gets told now through narratives, which are more striking and understandable than recitals of facts. Rudyard Kipling, a successful newsman as well as novelist and poet, wrote: “I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.”

The job of writers for American newspapers, in recent tradition, has been to jam as many answers as possible to those questions into the first paragraph of a story. It’s a style that can lead to the kind of writing that quickly turns a reader to the TV talk shows.

In what Weldon calls today’s “everyman” journalism, the effort to start with official sources summarizing the facts is giving way to narratives with striking color and the use of individuals as sources — preferably nonofficial individuals.

As a poet, Kipling could say a lot in four lines on a subject as complex as ethnically mixed love. In one well-known poem, “On the Road to Mandalay,” he describes that particular kind of earthquake as having struck a British soldier and a young Burmese woman whom the soldier saw at a Buddhist shrine. In the voice of the soldier, the poet says she was ”… a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idol’s foot Bloomin’ idol made o’mud — Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd — Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed ’er where she stud!”

That colorful narrative style can well attract more readers than a traditional news story that might begin:

MANDALAY, Burma — British Military Police today arrested a private of an East :London Regiment after he entered a Buddhist shrine and suddenly embraced a young woman worshipper. She apparently had made no resistance. Names were withheld pending investigation, according to a police spokesman under orders to remain anonymous.

Wheldon quotes approvingly a statement by the deans of five leading journalism schools in a manifesto on education of newspeople. “A well-functioning democracy depends on good journalism,” the statement says.

But her description of “everyman” stories breaks sharply with the aim of informing the voter on events in a way to help govern the country — government of the people, by and for the people, as Abraham Lincoln put it.

“They are about a society leaning toward personal storytelling,” she writes, “away from a reliance on factoids and news bullets. The kind of story in abundance now is as much about our tolerance — and desire for — the nonfiltered ramblings on YouTube.com, as it is the expectation that the newspaper will speak to us as friend, not as civics instructor.”

This is timely given the change in focus in the Pocono Record newsroom. I think there needs to be a balance struck and that telling compelling stories does not have to come at the price of accuracy, objectivity and well-written and error-free composition.

Thanks for sharing, Andrea. I’m going to buy this book.

I listened to the free Dow Jones’ InfoPro Alliance Webinar on Folksonomies & Taxonomies on Jan. 10. Here’s the event archive link.

Couple of observations:

1. We as media companies should adopt Webinars as a great way to communicate and teach our markets about new things to help us change the perception that we are just a newspaper.

2. I don’t know how many people were on the call but the moderator made note that there were people from all over the world. So, tagging isn’t a passing fad.

3. The target audience for this Webinar was large companies and how companies can use tagging or folksonomy to organize their internal information as well as communicate with their external audiences.

4. We as media companies need to use the technology available in however ways it’s available if only just to be OUT THERE experimenting.

5. How many of us have profiles where tagging is the way to organize information?

Here’s my list:
del.icio.us
Facebook
This blog
JTOlympians.com (drupal)

I’m sure there are others but this is a good start. I also have social networking profiles on:
LinkedIn
Twitter
YouTube
Flickr

What does your digital footprint look like? To Sean Polay’s point, if you were looking for a job in digital media could you say honestly that you walk the walk?

But, that’s a whole different post, I guess. My point is that we need to play where the world is playing even if our immediate market is not yet aware that world exists.

When I was in the Navy, we had a description for people who had been in the military for more than five years: The Walking Dead. I swear, they had dead eyes. How did that happen? Years of being beaten into submission, not physical beatings but emotional and intellectual. These men and women would suggest something, and the “leaders” would thank them and do nothing. After a while, the troops stopped making suggestions and just did the bare minimum to reach retirement.

I see dead eyes when I look at our newsrooms and our ad departments today. How many of you have heard co-workers say aloud, “I’m just waiting for retirement”? I’ve heard it multiple times and I really can’t blame them. If I knew I was not coachable and not interested in learning, I’d want to retire as well.

Of course the problem is that while those people wait for retirement the world marches on without us.

In a recent Steve Outing column, he makes suggestions on how to breathe life into newsrooms. I think some of those suggestions can work provided the walking dead are not completely dead and you can find some way to spark their interest and engage them once again. Some people won’t make it and those folks should just do everyone a favor and retire now or find another career.

For my part, I try and stay optimistic. Make the technology fun. Show, don’t tell, reporters and editors how they can use the technology to do what they do best — tell the community’s stories. Over my career, I like to think I’ve resuscitated a few people. And, I hope to continue to affect positive change.

After all, if the US Navy can change that culture and IBM can change its culture and numerous other industries and big companies can change, there’s no reason why we can’t!

We didn’t have to wait long to get an example of that lack of investment. According to the Associated Press, the Sun-Times is cutting 35 newsroom positions. Read the article here on forbes.com. So, if the one thing we offer in the information world today is local news, the Sun-Times will have to try and deliver with 35 less people. Go figure.